SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror

When he finally spoke, it was a shift in topic. “Last night’s police report opens a door of opportunity. We have a chance to put someone in the building. Not to remove anything, of course, but to have a quiet look-around without eyes on him. I’d like that to be you.”

“And I suppose if there was a file conveniently labelled ‘Changeling’ I shouldn’t let it lay there and gather dust.”

Church snorted. “If life were that simple, Captain, we would be out of jobs.”

“I thought the ATF had feet on the ground there.”

“They didn’t see anything last night.”

“And the cops did?”

He spread his hands, and I had a sneaking suspicion that he had something to do with that police drive-by and any subsequent report. Made me wonder if there was anything to see. ATF boys are usually pretty sharp.

“Besides,” added Church, “the ATF team has declined to break the seal and enter the premises.”

“Why?”

“Because if anything is disturbed or if there is any procedural error when someone does step inside, then that agency takes the political hit.” He shook his head. “If you look too closely for logic you’ll injure yourself.”

“Okay, I get that the bullshit factor is high. But why me? Why send a shooter?” I asked.

“Because you were a cop before you were a shooter. If nothing else, you should be able to determine if the place has been broken into. Work it like a crime scene.”

“And if I find someone poking around in there?”

His smile was small and cold. “Then you have my permission to shoot them.”

Nice. You can never really tell when he’s joking.

“One more thing,” said Church as I reached for the doorknob. “Our friends in the UK have expressed some interest in this matter. They red-flagged some of the negotiations between the Koenig Group and North Korean buyers, and they’ve been hunting for any possible information on Changeling. They’re sending a special agent to liaise with you. Her name is Felicity Hope. Expect her call.”

“She’s with MI6?”

“No,” he said, “Barrier.”

Barrier was Great Britain’s so-secret-we’ll-bloody-well-shoot-you group that was the model for the DMS. Church helped set it up, and once it proved to be invaluable against the new breed of 21^st century high-tech terrorist, he was able to sell Congress on the Department of Military Sciences. But just hearing that name was the equivalent of a swift kick in the nuts for me.

Grace Courtland had been a senior Barrier agent. She’d been seconded to the DMS at Church’s request and for a few years she was Church’s top gun. Maybe the world’s top gun. I worked alongside her, respected her, fell in love with her. And then buried her.

The pain was too recent and too real.

Church adjusted his tinted glasses. I knew that he was following my line of thought and gauging my reaction. I also knew that he wouldn’t say anything. He wasn’t the kind of guy who engaged in heart-to-hearts. What he gave me was a single, brief nod, just that much to acknowledge the memory. He loved Grace like a daughter. His pain had to be as intense as mine, but he would never show it.

It cost me a lot to keep it off my face.

-3-

Twenty minutes later I was in a Black Hawk helicopter, heading away from Baltimore’s sunny skies, heading toward the coastline of southern New Jersey.

The rest of my team – all of the two-legged variety – were scattered around the country looking at potential recruits. We’d lost some players recently and we had the budget and the presidential authority to hire, coax, or shanghai the top shooters from law enforcement, FBI hostage rescue, and all branches of Special Ops. For guys like us it was like being turned loose in a candy store with a credit card.

We flew through sunlight beneath a flawless blue sky.

When the Koenig Group had gone private a few years ago, they moved out of a lab building on the grounds of the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, an air force base sixteen miles south-east of Trenton, and purchased several connected buildings once occupied by a marine conservation group that had lost its funding. I pulled up the schematics of the place on my tactical computer. The place looked like it had been designed by whoever built the Addams Family mansion and the Bates Motel. The centerpiece was a faux Victorian pile that was all peaked roofs, balconies, widows’ walks, gray shingles and turrets. Almost attractive, but overall too austere and grim-looking. To make it worse, the conversion people had added wings and side buildings to the main structure, all connected by covered walkways that gave the whole place a haphazard, sprawling appearance. Unlovely, unkempt and supposedly unoccupied. Seen from above via satellite, it looked like several octopi collided and somehow melded together and were then covered with shingles and paint. Charming in about the same way as a canker sore is appealing.